Former JPMorgan investment banker Jes Staley is expected to be appointed chief executive of Barclays (BARC) in the next few weeks. Mr Staley will be stepping into the shoes of former chief executive and retail banker Antony Jenkins who was sacked less than three months after John Macfarlane took over as chairman. Mr Macfarlane is expected to maintain a hands-on style of management even after relinquishing his interim executive roll and going back to being chairman.
Before joining US hedge fund Blue Mountain Capital in 2013, Mr Staley spent 30 years at JPMorgan, where he rose to be head of its investment bank. His expected appointment raises questions about the bank's strategic direction, and whether the emphasis will steer more towards the investment banking side rather than its retail operations. Outwardly, this need not be a cause for alarm; the investment bank boosted pre-tax profit by more than a third to £1.4bn in the first half of this year, but it was the investment banking side that suffered the worst as a result of the economic crash.
Barclays is in the process of a significant restructuring of its operations, having shed over 10 per cent of its workforce and a quarter of the assets on its balance sheet. UK banks are also having to go through a protracted scheme whereby retail banking is ring fenced from investment banking activities to protect taxpayers from ever having to foot the bill of bailing out a bank again. Barclays faces a particularly tough challenge because of the size of its investment banking arm which grew with the acquisition of the US operation formerly run by Lehman Brothers.
